Three Keys for a Bears Upset Win

There many extenuating circumstances favoring the Bears in this game, and although the talent deficiency at many positions appears too great the outliers could add up for a win.

 Pinpointing three keys to a Bears victory in the opener over the San Francisco 49ers is actually a waste of time.

With this 49ers team, it's more a case of one key and two important but merely supportive challenges.

San Francisco's identity changes with Trey Lance now the starting quarterback.

It doesn't change away from this one key. In fact, this one key is even more important with Lance at quarterback.

Here are those two less important challenges and the singular key to winning this game in the rain at Soldier Field on Sunday for the Bears.

1. Winning the Rushing War

This isn't simply running the ball well. They have to do this, and they also must stop or limit the run on defense. They need to come out on top in the rushing battle. It's not going to be easy to do either, especially to run against the 49ers defensive front but it can be done.

"I mean if you can't run the ball, then it's gonna be hard to be successful on the offense," quarterback Justin Fields said. "So just having those guys in the running back room, getting the running game going, that's a big part of our offense.

"Of course the better we are running the ball, the more it's gonna open up play-action pass and a lot of the different stuff."

It doesn't have to be just David Montgomery's running or Khalil Herbert or Trestan Ebner. It can be Justin Fields' running. 

In fact, in this game they need him running and sliding for yards because conventional rushing will be tough against Fred Warner and the 49ers front. Doing it behind their new wide-zone run blocking scheme won't be easy because of the mobility of 49ers linebackers. San Francisco's speedy linebackers can avoid guards reaching the second level, and blocking the second level is what pops big gainers. Fields might need to come up with big gainers like he had in the 33-22 loss to the 49ers last year.

Is it possible?

Last year the Bears ran for 176 yards against the 49ers at Soldier Field. It was the most yards any team gained on the ground against San Francisco all year. They didn't have Montgomery in that game. Remember, that was in Matt Nagy's offense although he wasn't there due to COVID. The team was coached in that game by special teams coordinator Chris Tabor. Offensive coordinator Bill Lazor called all the offensive shots. Still, it was a Bears team that didn't run well in terms of yards per carry on the year and they managed to dominate on the ground.

The Bears outrushed the 49ers and still lost on that day, but if you look down the stretch at San Francisco's 2021 season it's obvious how important it is for the 49ers to outrush their opponents. They won seven of their last nine games to get into the playoffs and make the NFC championship game. In the seven wins, they outrushed their opponents. In the two losses, they didn't.

The other part of this might be as difficult for this Bears defense, and that's limiting the 49ers running attack.

The Bears defense hasn't really been tested in preseason because they haven't had Roquan Smith and he means so much to their scheme. 

San Francisco's Elijah Mitchell leads a rotational rushing attack capable of running on the best defenses in a wide zone blocking scheme similar to the one the Bears now use.

It's not easy to immediately build a strong run defense in a 4-3 scheme. When the Bears put in this scheme in 2004 under Lovie Smith, they had Lance Briggs, Brian Urlacher, Tommie Harris and they still gave up 669 yards rushing in a five-game stretch and fell to 1-5. Then they began stopping the run and turned things around defensively.

When Eberflus put the 4-3 into play with the Colts defense, they gave up 109 yards rushing a game for the first half of the season, then improved greatly and went on to allow 93.9 yards rushing the second half of the year to finish eighth against the run.

It might not be there early but if it is, and they are also able to run for more yards than San Francisco, they give themselves the chance for an upset against a 49ers team that is also going to need to run more because they have a quarterback with even less experience.

2. Contain Trey Lance

Containing him means staying in their rush lanes and not giving him areas to scramble upfield; it means containing him within the pocket. 

If they can force him to scramble by running backwards or sideways, the battle is half won because it gives them more time to come up out of their zone coverage for the tackle. In fact, if they can keep him within the pocket and not spend the day chasing him all over the field in bootlegs, the battle might be more than half won. 

There is no indication Lance can win a game from the pocket yet. There is very little that says Fields could do it, but there are at least a few examples of him playing well in this manner last year.

3. Justin Fields Efficiency

Fields doesn't need greatness. He needs to be free of turnovers and accurate enough and pick up third downs occasionally in order to extend drives. He doesn't need to be the Fields who threw three TDs in a half at Cleveland, although that would definitely help.

With some of the inexperience in the 49ers secondary, if Fields is given time to throw they could take advantage. But more than that, taking care of the ball and being efficient will suffice because his counterpart is playing in only his third NFL start, it's on the road, it's an opener and he has the haunting presence of Jimmy Garoppolo just waiting to take over if or when he begins fouling up.

So the pressure is all on Lance in this game and not Fields, who is quarterbacking a team no one respects, anyway. 

And that means no one.

"I've been in football a long time," Eberflus said. "You can't really pay attention to that. Because every year they make these predictions about teams. This team's gonna be this, and this team's gonna be that, and at the end, when you look at that particular team and what they said and it's always wrong.

"We just focus on ourselves and focus on what we're doing."

It's good advice for Fields as he plays within himself and tries to keep the negativity from flowing from outside to the inside of players' heads.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven